I attended the pre-opening celebration at the Port Townsend Aero Museum this evening. If you like old airplanes you don't want to miss this museum. It is the culmination of years of hard work by retired United Captain Jerry Thuotte and his lovely wife Peggy and a whole bunch of youngsters, and I mean youngsters, starting in their early teens. This is a great story and here's a really short version. Jerry and Peggy have been training young people for years in the art or aircraft repair and restoration, teaching them to fly, helping them get their A & P and pilot licenses then find jobs in the industry when they were ready. Jerry will tell you the whole story if you can corner him when you drop by the museum. He'll tell you the kids built the museum, not him, and he means it.

Besides the aircraft exhibits there is a reference library and some wonderful paintings, prints, and photographs on all the walls. If you haven't been to the Port Townsend Airport they have a good restaurant where you can grab breakfast or a burger. It's about 100 yards from the museum and there are plenty of tie downs.

For folks who didn't have a chance to make the Fly-In this past weekend, Rob Bach and Carolyn Applegate kindly took some photos of the approach in the Applegate's Cub. It is almost like being there! All photos by Carolyn or Rob.

On Sunday evening at the Fly-in, as the air was cool and just as the sun was going behind the trees, Eric Presten and Frank Schelling treated Skeeter Carlson for a ride in the Jenny. It was a great way to end the day of flying.

What a great fly-in this year! Hats off to the crew of volunteers at Blakesburg for making Air Mail Days one of the best fly-ins I've ever attended. Over the next few days, and probably weeks, I'll be posting up photos from the fly-in. If you have photos you'd like to share, please send me some email at webmaster@antiqueairfield.com and I'll put them on the site.

Jonathan Baron and Lynn Ford were weathered out of Blakesburg from their east coast locations, but in spite of that they did some flying this weekend with an impromptu Bellanca Triple Tail Tour ™ stop at Butler, Pennsylvania. Congratulations to Lynn for completing his recover in the past week!

It has been another beautiful day at the fly-in. The mail has flown again, lots of flying has been going on, and attendance is upwards of 320 aircraft. The field was nearly full at the height of the day.

With all the visiting, flying, and meeting folks, your webmaster didn't have much chance to take pictures, so today's photo report is a bit short. I'll post more pictures as I get them in from other photographers at the fly-in, so check back.

Early morning light and dew on an Airmaster.

Gary Van Farowe inspects the Boeing Model 40.

Photo by Tamara Williams

This 170 is a close tie with an Ercoupe for most highly polished aircraft on the field. As a veteran polisher I applaud their efforts!

Spinning some tales.

Photo by Tamara Williams

Dawn patrol in the Stearman. I love the smell of engine oil in the morning.